


You Didn't Have To Say My Name (Ignite My Circuits and Start a Flame)

by MagitekUnit05953234



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Experimental Style, M/M, MT Prompto Argentum, MT!Prompto, Messing with pronouns, its MT stuff you know the drill, mild angst with happy ending, mild body horror, mild objectification, mild romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-07
Updated: 2018-10-07
Packaged: 2019-07-27 19:45:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16226054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MagitekUnit05953234/pseuds/MagitekUnit05953234
Summary: “We hope to take Insomnia back someday. It won’t be easy to make things right, but we have to try. If not for us, then for all the people across Eos who have suffered under the Empire’s influence.”The unit considers. He remembers the tests, the enhancements, the training. He remembers holding his own magitek core in his hands.“I think,” and the unit has to pause here to choose his words. “I think you are doing the right thing.”





	You Didn't Have To Say My Name (Ignite My Circuits and Start a Flame)

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the prompt "hearts" from Tumblr user raneam-o1's gothic prompt list.  
> This went absolutely nowhere that I meant it to but I don’t think I mind, actually.  
> Original title (Brighter Than All of the Many Stars in the Sky) from Edgar Allen Poe’s _For Annie_. Revised title (edited 1/3/19) from Steam Powered Giraffe's "Honeybee."

The unit holds the cylinder in its hands. The magitek core glows in the middle, inside the clear portion, and on the outer face. The unit wonders how long it will have to hold it. The unit won’t function for longer than a minute without its core, and the unit’s vision is already beginning to darken at the edges. 

“Core replacement authorized,” the scientist says, and the unit slots the core back into its port. The unit feels relief that it won’t be deactivated for the sake of a test. It would never express that, though. 

* * *

“Get out of here,” the human says. She pulls on the unit’s arm, practically dragging it down the hall. The unit could kill her easily if it wanted.

It… doesn’t want. 

How strange. 

“There’s a snowmobile ready to go at the left end of the hangar. Do you know how to drive one?” 

The unit blinks. Its core seems to stutter, in the same way it would before the unit would have to decommission another unit in training. “Vehicle operation is not a standard skill set for rifle units.”

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” the human scoffs and pulls the unit along faster. “Guess you’re coming with me, then.”

* * *

The human, Commodore Highwind, has to leave the unit after two weeks of travel. A week of that time had been on a boxy transport that Commodore Highwind had called a train. The unit didn’t mind the train, though the amount of humans that were present was disconcerting. 

The unit is in Lucis now. It has dark glasses to cover its eyes and a thick jacket to conceal its ports and the glow of its core. It is supposed to pretend to be a human and travel to a place called Hammerhead. 

Commodore Highwind apologized as she left, saying that she had to return to Niflheim before her absence was noticed. She gave the unit a few things before she told him to follow the roads away from the seaside base she called Galdin Quay. The unit received paper currency that the unit was vaguely aware how to use, a few envelopes  that contained “letters” (the unit wondered how the envelopes could contain the components of the alphabet, but had no plans to ask) and one last thing: a name. 

The Commodore insisted that the unit should have a name just for the sake of having one, not only for the purpose of pretending to be a human. She was was so insistent on it that she gave one to the unit when the unit was unable to designate one for itself. It’s strange. 

Prompto Argentum.

There’s something nice about that. It’s not the unit’s proper designation, but it could get used to it. 

* * *

The unit has never been the best at judging time, but it has a vague idea of how to read the movement of the sun thanks to the Commodore. By the unit’s count, it has been about five hours since it set out from the Galdin Quay base.

The unit feels suboptimal. It is unused to the effects of the sun in this country, so hot and bright. It makes the unit’s ports sting and its skin turn red and painful to the touch. The unit’s brain has begun to pound inside its skull, as if the unit has been forbidden water rations for a day or two. It drank double the amount of water it ever got in a day in the facility this morning alone, though. The unit doesn't understand what the problem is. 

A transport, one of the Lucian varieties, slows to a stop about ten yards in front of the unit. The unit plans on passing it with averted eyes, but a human —a different one from the Commodore, but still the same type— steps out as the unit approaches and calls to it. 

“Hey,” the human says. She has a red hat on, but it's unlike any hat the unit has seen yet. The unit likes it. “You look like you could use a ride.”

The unit isn't sure how to respond, so it doesn’t. 

“What’re you doing in such a big coat, hon?” The human tilts her head. “And where’re you goin’? It’s a hundred degrees out here; you’ve got to be dying.”

“I am traveling to Hammerhead,” the unit says. “I am not dying.”

Humans die, so the unit refers to its hypothetical deactivation that way. It feels wrong in the unit’s mouth, like the overly rich rations the Commodore provided the unit on the first night they spent in the Galdin Quay base. Incorrect. Not meant for the unit. 

The human looks the unit over, evaluating. When she is done, she nods. “Well, I just so happen to be on my way there. You can ride with me, as long as you don’t mind sharing with the frogs. Truck’s got AC and everything.”

As it turns out, the unit does not mind sharing with the frogs, whatever that means. The inside of the transport is cool and only gets cooler the longer the unit is inside. There is a glass tank full of odd green creatures beside the unit’s feet, but they don’t seem to be a threat. They make a pleasant croaking noise every few moments. 

The unit is glad it decided to travel to Hammerhead this way. 

* * *

“Letters” are some sort of documentation, apparently. Like records, but not quite the same. The unit gives them to the human in charge of Hammerhead, and stands at rest as the man reads them. When the man has finished, he instructs the unit to call him “Cid” and orders the unit to follow him. 

The unit does. 

* * *

Existing in Hammerhead is different than the facility, but everything in the outside world is different from the facility. The unit isn't sure it is doing anything that humans do correctly, but Cid and Cindy —Cid’s daughter, which is some sort of association that no one can seem to explain to the unit without using “family,” another word the unit is unfamiliar with— are encouraging and haven't disciplined the unit once, even when it definitely deserves it. 

The only time Cid and Cindy appear displeased is when the unit fails to refer to itself in human terms. It tries to avoid it, but twenty years is a long time for the unit to try to overwrite just because Commodore Highwind ordered the unit to pretend.

* * *

When the unit has stayed in Hammerhead for three months, new humans arrive at the outpost. The unit is reluctant to talk to them at first, but Cindy convinces the unit to try with the promise of those spicy steaks he likes from Taaka’s restaurant. 

The unit ends up accompanying the three new humans on a hunt thanks to his knowledge of the surrounding area. His tendency to become overwhelmed in crowds, especially in those first days at the outpost, led to him spending a lot of time in the scrublands outside Hammerhead. He doesn’t know them as well as he did the facility, he will never know anything as well as he knew the facility, but he knows this area best of anywhere else in Lucis. 

The small one, Noct, can appear and disappear at will. It’s amazing. The unit’s magitek core glows bright at the sight, and the unit covers it with a hand. Even though he knows that the glow won't shine through the stiff shirt Cindy acquired for the unit (she called the fabric “blackout,” though it’s not black), the unit still carries an impulse to hide the light when he knows it is growing bright. 

Noct shimmers and reappears with his blade buried in a reapertail, and the unit presses his palm into the circle of his magitek core.

The sight doesn’t leave the unit’s mind, even when Noct and the other two humans depart for their next destination. 

* * *

When Noct returns, he is in no mood to talk.

The unit stays out of Noct’s way and wonders what happened. When the unit asks Cid, all Cid says is that Noct lost his home and that the unit should let Noct be. 

The unit no longer has access to the facility. He doesn't feel upset about that. 

He wonders if he should be.

* * *

On one of the nights that Noct comes back to Hammerhead, he sits alone outside of the caravan. He looks distressed, but in a muted way that the unit doesn’t know how to deal with. The unit approaches Noct anyway. 

“Hello,” the unit says, then reconsiders. “Hey,” he amends. 

“Hey,” Noct replies. He looks up from his phone. “Uh… Prompto, right?”

“Yes,” the unit confirms. He realizes his core is whirring just a touch more intensely than usual, and hopes that Noct can’t hear it.

“You don’t have your glasses today,” Noct makes a vague gesture toward his own eyes. 

The unit had stopped having to wear dark glasses one week ago. The reddish glow of his eyes had finally diminished in the absence of the daemon blood treatments, and Cindy had seemed especially pleased about it.

“My eyes are no longer overly sensitive to light,” the unit recites. It’s what Cindy told him to say, and Noct accepts it with a nod.

“That’s uh. That’s good,” Noct taps at his phone a few times. The unit doesn’t have a phone, but Cid has been talking about getting one for the unit. After a moment, Noct turns his attention back to the unit. “So, I was thinking… you’re a pretty good shot, right?”

“I am,” the unit refrains from saying that he had been the best sniper in his squad. Cid And Cindy never like to hear those details. 

“We —my friends and I, you met them— we’re about to go hunting out west and could use an extra man, if you want to come along. We’d give you a fourth of the pay, of course. It’s a tough hunt, so…”

The answer is easy.

* * *

 

The unit begins to accompany Noct and his friends whenever they hunt in the areas outside Hammerhead. The group never ventures far enough to necessitate them staying outside of the outpost overnight, though the unit isn’t sure it would mind if they did. Spending time with Noct and his friends is easy and comfortable, like the cool evenings when the unit would help Cindy in the garage— just with less grease. 

It helps that the one with glasses and a non-Lucian accent, Ignis, is surprisingly nice despite his resemblance to several scientists in the facility. He also makes food that the unit might consider being deactivated for if necessary. It’s quite good. 

“Prompto,” Ignis says one afternoon as they rest off the morning's exertions at Cotisse Haven. “What do you know about the Fall of Insomnia?”

“Not much,” the unit says. He only knows what little Cid and Cindy would tell him, and the bits and pieces he picked up from Noct and the other hunters in the meantime. 

“Noctis, Gladio, and I are from Insomnia,” Ignis takes a sip from his drink. With as much as Ignis tends to drink those canned coffees, the unit expected them to taste good. They don’t. “We hope to take it back one day.”

The unit doesn’t know how hunting is going to do that. 

Ignis continues, his gaze becoming oddly evaluatory from behind his glasses. “It won’t be easy to make things right. There’s a high chance we never will but even so, that doesn’t mean it is impossible. The Empire has taken our lives from us, and from so many others. We have to try. If not for us, then for all the people across Eos who have suffered under the Empire’s influence.”

The unit considers. He remembers the tests, the enhancements, the training. He remembers holding his own magitek core in his hands. He remembers his escape and his first taste of human rations, the way that the Commodore risked her life and livelihood for one magitek trooper. The unit wasn’t even finished yet —still just a body with the basic enhancements instead of a full-fledged armored unit. He will never be finished now. 

What would the unit have been like if he hadn’t been created by the Empire? What if the unit was like Noctis or Ignis or Gladio— a human from Lucis or Tenebrae or anywhere else? Anywhere other than Niflheim?

“I think,” and the unit has to pause here to choose his words. “I think you are doing the right thing.”

The corners of Ignis’s mouth turn up a little. The smile is slight, but there. 

The unit smiles back. 

* * *

The moment was gone as quickly as it occurred. The behemoth reared up and Noct was in stasis, unable to warp out of the way. The unit’s core ran faster than the unit had ever felt as he dashed forward, pushed Noct toward the relative safety that was the wall of the ruins behind him, and unloaded a clip into the behemoth’s skull. The first two didn't piece the monster’s formidable jawbone, but the rest did. The behemoth staggered then fell. 

“Holy shit,” Noct scrambled up from the dirt, dispelling his daggers to what he called the arsenal. “You saved my life. Holy shit.”

Gladio clapped a hand down in the unit's shoulder. “You did good, kid.”

The unit remembers it late at night, when it tries to sleep. The thought of Noct dying instills a spike of fear in the unit, but the pride the rest had for him after he saved Noct is not something that the unit wants to let fade in its memory. 

The unit thinks about it a lot. 

* * *

“You don’t have to,” Noct insists, as if the offer of traveling with him isn’t something the unit has been dreaming about since the first time they hunted together. “But the guys and I were talking and if you’d want to, we’d uh. We would really like to have you around. Specs even made this whole contract so you’d get paid and—”

“I don't need that,” the unit says, because he doesn’t particularly care about having money. As long as he has food and a warm place to sleep and the company of people who treat him like a human instead of an object, he’s content. Happy, even. “I’ll do it. I want to.”

* * *

“You be careful out there, y’hear?” Cindy fusses over the unit, giving him the third hug of this interaction. The unit finds that he doesn’t mind the repetition. He melts into the embrace just like he did the others. 

“I will.”

“Are you goin’ to tell them?” Cindy whispers, not drawing back from the hug. The unit feels a little awkward now. A little nervous. 

“Cid gave me the letter from the Commodore,” the unit says. “I’m going to give it to them before we leave. So they know.”

They part. Cindy looks sad, but also not. 

* * *

Noct and his friends have to have a discussion after the unit provides them with the letters that had been in Cid’s possession for six months now. The unit stays out of it, watching Noct’s movements from the corner of his eye while pretending to be investigating the same hunting bulletins that have been on the board outside Takka’s for a week now. Noct seems passionate, but the unit can’t tell whether Noct is trying to convince Gladio to let the unit accompany them or to convince Ignis that the unit should stay behind.

It’s nerve-wracking, and the unit busies his hands with twirling his woven bracelet around his right wrist. The bracelet, a braided thing made from dark leather strips, was a gift from Cindy meant to hide the unit’s codeprint. The unit likes it, and feels calmer after playing with it. 

In the end, it is Gladio who approaches the unit. Gladio has the letters clutched in one hand, and looks neither happy nor angry. The unit doesn’t like the ambiguity, but straightens up and waits for Gladio’s response to the unit’s origin. 

“Look,” Gladio sighs. “I can’t say I’m entirely alright with whatever the fuck this is—” here Gladio gestures at the unit with the letters. “But you’ve had a shit ton of opportunities to hurt any of us and haven’t done it yet. Hell, you’ve saved our asses more times than I feel like counting. I’m not going to stop you from coming along if that’s what you want, but if you make one step out of line then you’re out.”

“Understood,” the unit beams. 

* * *

“So, what exactly  _ are _ enhancements?” Noct asks. His eyes are fixed on the bobber floating in the pond, but his head is tilted toward the unit. “The letter wasn’t really specific.”

“When magitek units are created, we aren’t capable of the levels of combat that the Empire requires,” the unit taps out a rhythm on his legs. It’s a new habit, born of the hours spent listening to music in the passenger seat of Noct’s car. “The units are given daemon blood injections and are… uh. The scientists give us enhancements. Improvements, to make us stronger before we’re ready to be finished.”

“And the…” Noct grimaces. “The MTs. The empty ones. The armor… those are finished?”

“Yes.”

“And is there… are they like you?” 

“I dunno what you mean,” the unit tries to slur together his words the way humans do. It seems to make Noct feel more comfortable. 

“Are they… ugh,” Noct draws the line back in and recasts. “Are they people, like you? Can they think for themselves? Do anything they aren’t told?”

“No,” the unit swallows. The bobber in the water seems very interesting suddenly. “They can’t. They’re just shells and miasma.”

“Shit,” Noct banishes his fishing rod altogether. “I’m sorry, Prompto. I’m uh. I’m glad you got out.”

The unit tries to imagine being a finished magitek unit. He would hate it. He would hate living that way, especially now that he knows what it’s like to be free. “Me too.”

“This is gonna sound weird,” Noct rubs at the back of his neck. “And you can say no, but uh. I was wondering if I could see them? The enhancements? I never really saw any of the reports on this stuff back when I was in Insomnia. They wouldn’t let me. So I don’t really know much about any of this. Not like Specs or Gladio.”

“I can show you,” the unit pulls at the hem of its shirt. “I have to take this off, though.”

Noct reddens. He doesn’t meet the unit’s eyes when he says that it’s okay. 

The unit feels quite exposed without a shirt on. He resists the urge to wrap his arms around his torso and instead tangles his hands in the shirt in his lap. 

“Oh,” Noct reaches out as if to touch the reflex enhancers embedded in the unit’s left pectoral, but stops himself before contact is made. “There’s a lot. Do they… do they hurt?”

“Not now,” the unit says. “They used to. They hurt when it rains sometimes.”

“I’ve got an old injury that does that too,” Noct turns his attention to the glowing circle protruding slightly from the unit’s skin. “What is this?”

“It’s my magitek core,” the unit taps it with a finger. “It makes sure my enhancements continue to function.”

“What happens if it gets broken?” Noct watches the movements of the unit’s hand with a kind of focus that the unit hasn’t seen outside of the battlefield.

“If my core is damaged or taken out, I’ll deactivate after a minute or so,” the unit pushes on the core, almost enough pressure to prompt an ejection. Testing fate. “It’s pretty much the same as your heart, I think.”

Noct asks the unit to put his shirt back on, and the unit does. 

* * *

The next time the unit saves a life, it’s Gladio’s. The zu, a gargantuan bird roosting near the top of a volcano, nearly knocked Gladio off a high ledge with a single swing of a massive wing. The unit was barely able to pull Gladio up, and the unit thanked the Empire for providing him with the artificial strength needed to do it. 

The unit would hate seeing any of Noct’s friends be hurt. 

* * *

“Prompto, can I ask you something?” Noct asks, as if the unit has ever refused to answer. 

“Yeah,” the unit replies, the same as it always does. 

“Have you ever done something you didn’t want to do because you ha—” Noct snaps his mouth shut. He takes a deep breath. “Sorry. Stupid question. Of course you have.”

“What is this about?” The unit asks, because he’s been getting way better lately at reading into when Noct really wants to talk or when he doesn’t. Right now, he does.

“I have to marry someone,” Noct begins. “I knew her when I was little, and we’re still friends but I just. I don’t think I want to marry her. I don’t love her that way, you know? I don’t think she wants to marry me, either. We haven’t even seen each other in like twelve years.”

“Sounds rough,” the unit says.

“I wish I could choose.”

“Well,” the unit leans back in his chair. He watches the campfire crackle. “Who is making you marry her?”

“The Empire, I guess.”

The unit laughs. He isn’t sure why he finds that funny, but he does. “I haven’t done a single thing they’ve wanted in months. Why should you?”

Noct stares at the unit. The unit stares back, his mirth dying on his tongue. Noct looks… intense. 

“You’re right,” Noct says. He stands up and crosses the distance between his seat and the unit’s. Noct takes hold of the unit’s hand and smiles, the strange look fading from his features. “You’re right!”

* * *

The unit sits in the corner of the caravan, forehead pressed into his knees. It’s been a while since he’s been so overwhelmed. 

“It’s alright,” Ignis brings the unit a mug full of tea, and the unit drinks a few mouthfuls. “Galdin Quay can be a bit overwhelming for those who haven’t been here before. It’s the crowds.”

“I have,” the unit mumbles. “When I first came to Lucis. I was here first.”

Ignis sits beside the unit. They don’t say much else. 

The unit likes that Ignis knows when not to pry.

* * *

The unit never had a word for it until Gladio let him borrow one of the books that Gladio always reads in the car. 

Love. 

It’s in the way the unit’s core will stutter when Noct is around, the way the whole world seems a little brighter when Noct laughs, the way that the unit can’t help but smile whenever Noct does. The unit hates the days when Noct shuts himself away from the others through sleep or silence. Days when Noct is happy are simply better than those when he’s not, and the unit does his best to make the former more common than the latter. 

If Noct hadn’t come into the unit’s life, the unit doubts he would ever have ventured very far from Hammerhead at all. He would have known nothing more than the facility and the desert until he stopped functioning. 

It’s a terrible thought. The unit loves the life he has now with Noct and his friends, exploring Lucis and collecting magical artefacts. Even when the unit has to destroy finished MTs, he can’t find the will to regret his choice to join Noct. 

The unit loves Noct, and the unit loves his life, and existing is  _ good _ . 

* * *

“Hey, Prompto,” Noct waves from his spot on the dock. Noct’s eyes sparkle bright blue in the sunlight. “Come ‘ere.”

Prompto scrambles up from the sand. He had been standing on the beach beside the dock, feet in the waves and pants rolled up, taking pictures of the strange island emerging from the waves beyond. Prompto pockets the camera, a gift Noct had given him a month back, and clambers up onto the jetty. “What’s up?” 

“Look,” Noct points up toward a cloud, fluffy and white. “Doesn’t that look like a chocobo?”

Prompto squints. “Maybe?”

“It totally does,” Noct turns toward Prompto and Prompto is struck by the urge to kiss him. 

Prompto could if he wanted to. 

He  _ does _ want to. 

It’s not as weird as it should be.

“Hey Noct,” Prompto grabs Noct’s hand. “Wanna go for a walk?”

“What for?”

Prompto’s magitek core glows bright through his shirt. “I wanted to ask you something.”

**Author's Note:**

> But you did.  
>   
> Follow me on Twitter [@compromisedunit](https://mobile.twitter.com/compromisedunit)!


End file.
